


I'm not used to the cold

by Apricot_Writes



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Autistic Entrapta (She-Ra), Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Scorpia has ADHD, am i right fellas, stressed teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:40:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23261842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apricot_Writes/pseuds/Apricot_Writes
Summary: Scorpia moves with her mother to a new city, with a new culture, in a new country. Luckily, she meets some amazing people to help her through it. Unluckily, there are some problems that friendship can't solve.She-Ra highschool AU!
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	1. Prologue

A cool September breeze rustled the red and black polka dotted curtains. Sunlight slowly filtered through the thin fabric, shining light onto the snoring, white-haired girl below. The sleeping figure, lying on a mattress on the floor, pulled her blankets up tightly to her chin. She shivered, the low 20s temperature had already chilled her to the bone despite having just got here yesterday. 

The room was small and bare, starch white with paint peeling off in some corners; devoid of furniture save for a dresser pushed against one wall, a hamster cage in the far corner, and boxes. So many boxes. So many boxes that you didn’t realize how much stuff you had until you put it all in boxes and said to yourself, ‘wow, that’s a lot of boxes’. Some were labelled with ‘clothes’, ‘movies’, or ‘plushes’, while others were left blank. A few had question marks on them. Scorpia was not good at organizing. 

The hamster noisily skitted on its wheel as the morning sunlight pouring in lit up the bedroom. A phone, plugged into the only outlet in the tiny room, lit up with a 6am morning alarm, playing music quite loudly.

“Johnny don’t leave me, you said you’d love me forever…”

Scorpia yawned, groaning as she sat up in bed, or rather, sat up on her mattress. She stretched her arm above her head until she heard that satisfying ‘pop’ in her back. Was popping your joints even good for you? Important questions to google later. The teen smacked her lips, pushing off her covers and throwing on an oversized sweater. 

“We’ve got a small family business, and the family won’t like-”

She unplugged her phone and shut off the alarm, humming the tune of the song under her breath. Opening her door and leaning on the doorframe, she stretched once more, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Scorpia squinted, trying to remember where the stairs were in her brand spankin’ new apartment. Well, it wasn’t new. Probably built in the early 2000’s. Maybe 90’s. Scorpia would’ve liked to have been alive in the 90’s. But even though the apartment was old, the apartment was new to her. Wait, what was she doing? Oh yeah, trying to find the stairs. 

“Apartment,” The white haired teen remembered, “No stairs in an apartment.”

Placing her left, and only, hand on the wall for support, she guided herself to the kitchen to make her signature breakfast: instant oatmeal with crushed up Oreos on top. The oatmeal, she reasoned, was healthy enough to cancel out the fact that she was eating Oreos for breakfast. She turned a light on, then turned it off when it was to sunny in the room to see the light. Scorpia was sure that the further north you went the less sunny it was, but this city was really sunny. Wait, what am I doing? Oh yeah. She filled up the kettle and set it on the stove. Scorpia pulled over a sturdy enough looking box, with ‘Ikea chairs’ written on it, to sit on while she waited for the water to boil. After about five minutes, she remembered to turn on the stove.

Scorpia was in a good mood. Well, Scorpia was always in a good mood. Not always, per say, but most of the time. But she was in an extra good mood because today she was going to the highschool to pick out her classes. She wondered, idly, if they had the same literature classes here that she had fallen in love with back home in Phoenix. Or any drama classes. It’s highschool, she told herself, there’s gotta be at least 20 theatre kids. That constitutes a drama class, right? The kettle whistled, and Scorpia made her breakfast and returned to her bedroom to eat and get ready. Sifting through the mountains of boxes (unpacking was definitely on her to-do list for today) she managed to find one with some clothing in it. A black blouse, red Converse, and her signature favourite black skinny jeans. Her prosthetic was somewhere in here, she had packed it away so she would be more comfortable on the plane. It was only for ‘looking normal’ purposes, anyway, so she could do without. She shoved the last bite of her breakfast in her mouth and grabbed her purse.

“Bye mom,” she shouted into the apartment. “I’ll be back in 20!” 

Off on her way, she locked the door to the apartment and practically jumped (fell) down the three flights of stairs. She opened the outside door to the building and started to walk down the street towards the bright red brick building, with murals of octopus (octopi? Octopuses? Add that to the googling list.) painted on the side.

“Nope, wrong building.” Scorpia thought aloud, turning around and walking the other way. 

It was going to be a really good day.


	2. Dumb dress codes

The building, or rather buildings, when she finally found the school, were huge. Scorpia thought it looked more like a college campus than a highschool. There was an administrations building, a separate gymnasium next to an outdoor basketball court, and two other buildings full of what Scorpia could only assume were classrooms; each four storeys high and intimidating dark brick. Skyscraper skyline a few streets back framed the image. 

It would make a good jigsaw puzzle, Scorpia thought, although there was a little too much white in the sky. That would get frustrating, especially if a piece was missing-

Scorpia nearly bumped right into the door of the administration office, catching herself the second before her nose touched the door. She let herself in, which seemed to be the correct course of action. She smiled at the secretary. The secretary held up a wrinkled and knobby finger and pointed at the phone held up to her ear. Scorpia bounced on her heels and looked around the office while she waited. Art hung on the pale yellow walls, presumably made by students long since graduated, some dating back to 2010. Flowers at the end of their lifespan just beginning to wilt; new bulbs at the stem ready and waiting to bloom and take their place.

“Scorpia Yigh?” The secretary lifts her eyes from the paper register on her desk.

“Yes, but it’s actually Yi, like the ‘i’ in ‘see’. Wait, bad example, like the ‘i’ in-”

“Here’s your schedule, Scorpia Yigh.” The secretary pushes a page forward, along with some other papers, and returns her hands to rest on the clunky old keyboard. Scorpia smiled at her once again, which was unfortunately not returned. The encounter was weirdly calming, it eased nerves she didn’t know she had. No matter where you went in the world, high school secretaries were tired and cranky. It was a peaceful constant to Scorpia, and she held onto it.

She opened the door to the gravel pathway outside and found a bench to sit on. In the ten minutes she was in the office, more students had filtered onto the school grounds. Scorpia realized that she looked out of place very quickly. Most students wore collared shirts and ties, cardigans and pleated skirts. 

Note to self, she thought, find the box with your dresses in it.

Pushing down the growing pit of anxiety, she decided to just read the schedule on her way home. Today, Wednesday, was only technically the third day of the school year, so it wasn’t that big of a deal if she took an extra day off of classes to organize herself. A loud group of what looked like freshmen sat in the grass under a large oak tree, gathering dandelions to make flower crowns. None of them were particularly good at it. More students sat or stood in groups talking, turning their heads and looking at her. Scorpia became very self aware, looking at all of the skirts and high socks, that she was the only girl wearing pants. That was culture shock number 2.

Culture shock number 1 was getting used to celcius.

The gravel path of the school grounds changed back into city sidewalk and Scorpia allowed herself to calm down. She looked at what exactly the secretary had given to her. A schedule, a school map, a small paper handbook stapled together, and a slip of paper with her locker number and combo written on it. Scorpia took out her schedule first. It’s different from Arizona, she noted. Five 70 minute classes with 15 minute breaks in between. Math first, then English, art, phys ed, and finishing with chemistry. Pretty good.

The school map was nearly unreadable. The only thing she could make out was where the entrances to the school property were, and which buildings had which room numbers. Very helpful.

The paper handbook was a grand total of 4 pages. There were the basic school rules, no profanity, no cellphones, no cheating, what happens if you’re caught cheating, all the normal stuff. But then there were some unfamiliar ones. No soda on campus. Students may be subjected to locker checks. 

There were pages on school clubs and sports teams, and Scorpia was able to breathe a sigh of relief when she saw a drama club. The white haired girl turned onto her street when she opened the page on the school dress code. Two columns across the page, each listing ‘appropriate garments for each gender’. Collared shirts. Blouses. School club t-shirts. Pleated skirts. ‘Denim skirts’ was written in pen, presumably written in later. The word ‘pants’ was not written in the girls column. Lovely.

Scorpia realized she almost walked past her apartment and unlocked the door, climbing the stairs to her unit as she flipped to the school schedule on the back page of the booklet. The gates opened at 7:00am, and the administration, buildings, and library opened at 7:10. Class began at 8:15, lunch from 12:30 until 13:00. Weirdly short lunch. The last class ended at 15:30. The library didn’t close until 20:00, presumably to allow students to do homework and study after class.

Unlocking her apartment and tossing the papers on a box that had ‘table’ written on it (she wasn’t sure if there was a table in the box, or if the box was the table), she retreated to her room. Task number one was finding appropriate clothes to wear to school tomorrow. Was there a length criteria to the skirts? Scorpia didn’t see very many knees at the school, so she figured it was a ‘fingertip rule’ kind of place. She pulled a floral miniskirt out of a box and tossed it over her shoulder, and stared down at the sea of miniskirts, yoga pants, and jeans. She might need to go shopping. Digging around in a box with one arm was a workout for sure, but she finally pulled out a knee length burgundy skirt. It was ugly, Scorpia doesn’t know why she packed it, but it was a long skirt that would suffice until she could go shopping on the weekend. She could wear the same thing twice in a row, right? Maybe she could just wear really different shirts so nobody would realize.

She left her room and walked to the kitchen for a glass of water and some adequate stress eating snacks. There was now a microwave and coffee press on the counter and a couple less boxes on the floor, so Scorpia took it that her mother had been unpacking. There was a note on the counter, ‘gone for groceries’. They had only come with the bare essentials in food. That eliminated Scorpia’s plan to stress eat, unless she wanted to stress eat bagels and oatmeal.

The day went by quickly, but it was productive nonetheless. Scorpia only took an hour to assemble her new furniture, which she thought was an amazing accomplishment. After dinner when she and her mother had fallen onto the sofa to watch TV, they had both fully stocked and decorated the kitchen and bathroom, all they had left was the living room and the personal belongings in their bedrooms.

“Nope, I can’t rest until this whole house is done.” Scorpia’s mother, Jin, stood up and grabbed her wallet. 

“Not a house, technically.” Scorpia smiled.

“I’m going to grab some wall tac for those paintings, you can sit tight until I’m back. We can try to tackle sorting out the linens when I get back.”

Scorpia flicked through her list on Netflix, and settled on rewatching The Office.

Someone knocked on the door, Scorpia assumed her mother had forgotten keys. She stood up and opened the squeaky door, and was met with the face of a blonde teenager. She was probably the same age as Scorpia, and looked like she was still wearing her school clothes. A white button down shirt tucked into a red pleated shirt. She had black ballet flats and knee high white socks with two red stripes at the top.

“Hi! I’m, um, I’m Adora. I live downstairs, well, two downstairs. From you. I live on the first floor.” The girl finished, holding out her right hand to shake.

Scorpia smiled, put her phone down on box-table and held out her left. Adora looked at her for a minute before she blushed and switched hands. 

“Omigoshimsosorry!” She shook the taller teens hand for a bit too long, until she seemingly remembered what she was here for. “My foster parents and me saw that you just moved in so I, we, made some cookies.”

Scorpia smiled and took a silver tin from her hands. “Thank you! You can come sit, if you want. Do you go to school at Greenwood?”

Adora followed her inside, “Yeah, I’m in grade 11.”

“Me too! Oh man, what classes do you have? I just got my schedule today. I just moved here from Arizona, like, yesterday, so I’m starting school three days late. But it’ll only be Thursday, so there’s not that much I could’ve missed.” She handed over her schedule as she rambled on.

“We have all the same classes together!” Adora handed back the schedule. “I will, however, warn you that the math teacher is literally Satan, and that the art teacher is nuts.”

The two girls sat in the kitchen on new barstools and talked about Arizona, the school, how dumb the dress code was (‘yes, they literally will send you home if you wear pants, Adora said, it’s a nightmare in winter’), and how dumb the people on the second floor who play loud music are.

Adora eventually had to leave, and as Scorpia watched her close the door, she couldn’t believe how fast she made a friend. She was almost disappointed in herself for hurting someone else.

@@@

“Back to the street where we began, feeling as good as lovers can,”

Scorpia’s alarm filled her room with music, and she nearly turned it off before she remembered that she had class. She looked at the time. 6:08am.

Scorpia put on her one good skirt, and looked in her now sorted and folded dresser for some shirt to wear with it. She settled on a black and white striped collared shirt. She put on a pair of white crew socks, and her red converse. 

“I don’t look that bad.” She told herself. When you wear skinny jeans every day for 3 years, anything else looks odd. She grabbed a grey pullover sweater for good measure and threw it on. She combed her hair, brushed her teeth, and ate oatmeal with no crushed up oreos on top. She was a changed, mature woman, who wore knee length skirts and jumpers with spaceship patterns.

She went back to her room to put her bag together when she saw her prosthetic on her dresser. Do I wear it and look normal, but then have to explain to everyone that no, I cannot move this fake arm? Or do I go without and get stared at. Scorpia picked it up and worried her bottom lip between her teeth. No. She was going to school with her right sleeve tucked inside out in her shirt, wearing her disability proudly. She wondered if her father would be proud. She didn’t know. The girl- no, woman now,- inhaled and exhaled, put on a smile and went through with her routine, make the bed, feed Hamster the hamster, before she left.

"Bye!" Scorpia called over her shoulder, waving to her mother as she swung her messenger bag over her head (backpacks don’t work with one shoulder). "See you at 3!"

She did not fall down the stairs today, which is good because the teen didn’t know if her anxiety levels could take that today. Scorpia took a deep breath in, not quite used to the difference in city air and country air. There was just a hint of gasoline and car exhaust wherever she went, and Oh God the air by her apartment smelled like cigarettes. A downgrade, in her humble opinion, to the subtle smell of grass and hint of autumn crispness from home. She walked up her street towards the highschool, head held high in knowing that she already had a friend there. And who knows? That friend might have a friend, who has a friend, and the next thing you know- bam! Scorpia now has a bunch of friends.

She checked the time on her phone as she walked up the stairs leading to the front doors of the building with her math class- 7:37am. Perfect. She had enough time to find all of her classes in advance, and to catch up with Adora before classes. Oh! Maybe she should just find Adora, since they had the same schedule.

The hall diverged from a straight corridor into its maze like structure, which after 20 minutes of roaming, Scorpia discovered that it was just shaped like a circle, with a cafeteria in the middle, and different small hallways branching off. There were 4 floors, which if you asked Scorpia was too many floors, and once she got directed to the right one, she set off to find her first class of the day. Math 11, with Mr Hordak. "Adora said she hated him," Scorpia thought, "Guess I'll find out what that's all about."

At 7:58 exactly, Scorpia finally found his classroom hidden away, not only in one of those weird sub-hallways, but in a sub-sub-hallway. There were 6 other students in the class, either doodling, reading, or talking. The seats were arranged in 5 rows of 5. Scorpia took a seat on the edge of the class near a window, exhaling as the first day anxiety started to creep up on her. 


	3. Making friends

Am I even in the right class? Oh man, I don’t see Adora yet. I should leave. I should go to the bathroom and cry. That’s a good idea. Where even is the bathroom? What time is it? Okay, it’s only 8:01.

“Hi. You are in my seat.”

Scorpia looked up at the girl standing in front of her. She had long hair dyed a soft violet, which matched her violet converse and a pocket detail on her denim skirt. The collar of a tan collared shirt poked out from a white sweater, patterned with suns and moons. Her socks were two different colours and heights, Scorpia noted. Wait, when did she even get there?

“That seat is the least squeaky, it has the perfect view of both the blackboard and the nest of young pigeons in mature oak tree number 7, I have the trees classified, which I am studying. Also my name is Entrapta.”

Scorpia picked up her bag and moved one desk back. “Sounds interesting,” she made conversation, “what about them are you studying?”

“Whether or not they get fed at the same time every day. Also how many boys try to throw grass at them.” The girl, Entrapta, laid her yellow bag on the desk. It was covered in pins; enamel pins of different crystals, buttons from different bands and events, a red puzzle piece. There were also different charms and small plushes hanging from every zipper. She reached a hand up to tangle in one of her pigtails, running her fingers through the long hair.

“You are new.” She said, though it sounded much more like a question. 

“Yeah,” Scorpia replied, “I just moved here from Arizona, like, yesterday.”

Entrapta hummed a noise of understanding, and smiled as she looked to the door. Scorpia turned her head to see a group of three students walk into the classroom- and Adora was in the middle! There was a girl and a boy. The girl was short, chestnut brown curls framing her face. Her hair was held in place by the use of too many hair clips to count; each a different colour and pattern. She wore a simple blue dress with a white blouse layered underneath. Only one of her legs was covered by white tights, Scorpia figured it was some sort of trend she wasn’t yet aware of. Her white Vans were made shiny and sparkly via what Scorpia could only assume was the use of a bedazzler. The boy on Adora’s other side was tall with warm, dark skin and a mass of curls atop his head. His yellow collared shirt wasn’t tucked into his black pants. Casual.

“Oh, hi Scorpia!” Adora put her bag down on the desk behind Scorpia, her two friends taking seats nearby too. “Glimmer, Bow, this is Scorpia. She just moved upstairs in my building. Scorpia, meet Glimmer and Bow. Or shall I say, koreaboo and bumblebee.” Adora smirked.

“Oh my god I do not look like a bee-”

“So I play kpop at your house ONCE-”

“-black and yellow just look good together-”

“-ONE TIME and all of a sudden I’m a weeb?”

“-it’s called fashion, Adora, look it up!”

Adora’s other friends, Glimmer and Bow, defended themselves talking over each other. Adora slid her bag off of her desk and turned to face Scorpia.

“How has your first day been so far? Oh, wait! You should come to a café with us after school and tell me about it. It’s called Brightmoon, it’s run by this really sweet couple.”

“Definitely, that sounds-”

The classroom door slammed against the concrete wall. The oldest, crankiest teacher Scorpia had ever seen in her sixteen years of life shuffled into the class. He locked the door behind him, and stood in front of the blackboard. Scorpia looked at the clock on the wall. Wasn’t it only 8:11? There was still, like, five minutes left until class started.

“Get out your blue textbooks. Get a textbook from the back of the class if you do not have one. Silently,” he emphasized this, writing it on the board with a piece of scratchy chalk, “read pages 7 to 15, and do questions 12-25c in the red workbooks. Hand it in tomorrow.” Scorpia understood what Adora meant by cranky. This guy ate a bowl of pins and glue for breakfast. 

She stood up and grabbed a blue textbook on the back shelf and sat down. I hope this isn’t too hard, she thought, maybe it’s just a review.’ The reading was easy enough, triangles weren’t that hard to understand.

“Miss Yi.” Scorpia looked up, Mr. Hordak was gesturing for her to go to his desk. At least he pronounced her name right. She put her book down and walked up the aisle. There were four different coloured paperback scribblers on his desk, which he pushed towards her.

“These are the four workbooks you will work from. Do not take the textbook home. There is 45 minutes of homework a night for this class. I do not tolerate students who do not work. I do not tolerate tardiness. Understand?”

Scorpia just nodded, man this guy was scary. She took the booklets back to her desk and crossed her fingers that she wouldn’t get on this guy's bad side.

@@@

English and art passed by with no trouble. Although, after Scorpia got another half an hour of homework in English, she began to understand why the library was open so late.

Then came phys ed. As Scorpia walked across the gravel path from art class with Bow, she couldn’t help but smile.

Scorpia was an active person. Even after losing her arm, she still stayed fit. Running, yoga, lifting weights, even sometimes playing on school sports teams. 

But phys ed?

She hated it.

Bow opened the gymnasium doors for her and Scorpia put her hand into her pocket to feel that papery goodness. The note from her mother, an absolute tearjerker. My poor, poor, baby girl is too unwell to play dodgeball with the other students. Look at her poor little face, how mean would it be to make the amputee try to do a push up? Look how sad she is trying. 

The gym was partitioned in half, boys and girls seperated. Man, this school was the weirdest mix of old fashioned and progressive. Scorpia saw both gender neutral bathrooms and a girl get sent home for wearing mom jeans when she was on the way to English. Strange.

The gym doors opened again and Entrapta walked in with another girl, who smiled and walked over to sit next to Scorpia. Friend number five, Scorpia thought, perfect.

As they walked across the gym, Scorpia recognized the new girl. It was mom jeans girl! She was now wearing a black blouse and a blue skirt, so she was safe to assume that mom jeans girl did not win that fight with administration. She was, however, taking what victories she could; her shirt was unbuttoned halfway down her chest. A brave choice for phys ed.

“Hi Scorpia”, Entrapta sat down on the bench beside her, “this is Catra. She’s mean and cranky.” 

Catra made an offended sound, and crossed her arms. “I got sent home for wearing jeans. JEANS! And Miss Castaspella didn’t even let me explain that I was fighting the patriarchy! All she told me was that I could fight the patriarchy after I finished my geology homework.” She sat on the bench on the other side of Scorpia, radiating a lot of anger for someone so small.

The phys ed teacher, a youngish guy, walked down the line of benches marking something on a clipboard.

“Entrapta Ponce, Catra Peralta, and you must be Scorpia Yi.” The teacher pointed at her with his pen. Scorpia almost forgot to give him her golden ticket. She handed the page over, almost smugly.

“Yeah you don’t even need a note,” he gestured to her right half, clipping the note behind some other papers, “participate if you feel like it.”

Scorpia had officially found her favourite teacher.

@@@

Lunch was fun. Apparently there were over 5500 students at the school. Well, there were not 5500 chairs in the cafeteria. Scorpia sat under what Entrapta told her was Birch tree number two, home to squirrel specimen ‘Emily’.

“My dad doesn’t let me have pets,” Entrapta told her over her lunch of miniature peanut butter sandwiches, “he doesn’t think I’ll take care of them properly.”

Scorpia hummed a note of sympathy, she had to beg for ages to convince her parents to let her get a hamster. She originally wanted a scorpion, but her father shut down that train of thought rather quickly.

She looked up from her lunch, rice, vegetables, and kimchi, to see Bow dragging his feet over to where the group sat. Glimmer and Adora were throwing popcorn into each other's mouths, while Catra was writing a very wordy and angry Tumblr post about the lost mom jeans battle. She spotted Bow dragging his feet over towards the group, pink cheeks and pouty lips.

He sat down on the grass next to Catra. “I need to stop leaving my lunch in my dad’s classroom. He always talks to me for, like, an hour before I’m allowed to leave.”

“George?” Adora looked perplexed, and at the same time shocked.

“Oh, yes, definitely George.” Bow’s voice was thick with sarcasm. “No, it’s Lance. Maybe I should try leaving my lunch in George’s room.”

“Or just, I dunno, get a locker like the rest of us and stop leaving all your stuff with your dads?” Glimmer took a shot at Adora with a particularly large piece of popcorn, taking advantage of the distraction. Adora looked like she could murder.

“Excuse me, I have to deal with all the embarrassing dad stuff they do while I’m at school. Once, George handed me a paper and said ‘here you go sweetie’.” The whole group collectively winced. “My point exactly, not having to carry any textbooks in my bag is my reward for putting up with this.”

Bow opened his lunch box and pulled out an apple. 

Scorpia was, in all honesty, impressed with how crankily he could eat an apple.

“And, done!” Catra put down her phone and picked up the burrito she was eating. “I am going to make this schools stupid skirt rule national news. Then they’ll have to change it.” 

“Meh, I don’t find it too bad.” Glimmer popped a grape in her mouth. “All I wear are dresses anyways.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah.”

Catra had decided that Glimmer and Adora needed to know how patronizing dress codes were, which blew up into a full argument. But it was also peaceful. The leaves had just a sprinkle of colour to them; the grass was crisp and the sun could no longer dry off all the dew wet. The clouds dulled the sun to a soft yellow, casting short shadows onto all the buildings. Scorpia decided she liked it here for the time being.

Three years.

Three more.


	4. Homework :(

The rest of her classes fared as one would expect with the first day of school. Chemistry was fine save for the hour of homework the chem professor gave her. Apparently Scorpia was already behind. Lovely. At least she got to sit next to Adora and Bow, who gave her pointers on the first three days' material, which truly felt like a month's worth of work. They were patient, and Scorpia appreciated that. 

In all honesty, Scorpia didn’t think she would make five friends on her first day. Five. And they were all good people too, not just catty girls and snarky guys.

Geology was, to say the least, a different story. Adora was right about the geology teacher being nuts.

“ROCKS?” She had shouted the minute everyone had sat down, arms raised and beads and pendants jangling from her arms. Was it even a question? She had said it like it was a question, but Scorpia did not see how she could answer to ‘rocks’.

“What are rocks.” Her tone was much softer, an almost mellow sound that was the fade-out to a Beatles hit. 

After that she simply read from the textbook in a monotone voice and assigned 30 minutes of homework. 

Once the bell sounded, Adora and Bow walked out of the class with her and towards the tree the group had eaten lunch at, both of them complaining about the unfair workload.

“So how much homework ‘ve you got? Me and Bow are tied at two hours.” Adora pulled the straps up on her bookbag, slouched over and tired looking.

Scorpia counted in her head. “I think like 2 and a half? I got like an hour in math, 20 in English, 30 in geo, and another hour in chem. Oh, wow, that's like 3 hours. Aw, man.”

“Look on the bright side,” Bow put a hand on her shoulder, shifting his math books to his other arm, expression deadpan serious, “You win the suffering contest.” His demeanor cracked as he smiled.

“How about we go to the library? I think Catra said she would be there with Entrapta.” Adora said. “We can do some homework and then go to Brightmoon for some coffee.”

The library turned out to be its own building, hidden behind the others, and was the oldest building on campus by a large margin. The dark red, nearly black bricks seemed as though they were disintegrating into ash; one wall of the building looked nearly smooth with how worn down the bricks were. Like somebody had sandpapered them down. The door was easily four meters tall and intimidating dark wood framed by worn marble. Pillars held up a small awning, also made from marble, which gave the building the demeanor of a courthouse, or maybe church. Short windows peeked out from just under the edge of the slanted roof, and 2 larger stained glass windows stood on either side of the door. A layer of dust and century old grime covered the entire building, but Scorpia didn’t think that made the building ugly. It added character.

The doors were propped open which made the creepy building a tad more inviting. There were tall, tall shelves on all sides of the building, as well as rows of shelves near the back. Tables were situated all around the library, and a front desk with a group of old ladies chatting amongst themselves. Off to the very back was a separate room which Scorpia later learned was a computer room. There was a balcony too, about half of the library was split into two floors, with few bookshelves and mostly just tables on the balcony. There was a metal spiral staircase in the middle of the floor to access the balcony with a looping, floral cast iron railing that extended to the edge of the balcony. For a public highschool, it all looked so regal. So important. The bookshelves were easily twice Scorpia’s height and spanned from the bottom to the top of the room. Maybe even three times her height. Sliding book ladders were spaced out across the shelves, and as Scorpia saw a girl grab a book from one end of a high shelf, and slide herself down the row of books to get another one, Scorpia decided that that was the funnest thing she has ever seen in her entire life. She wanted to try it so bad.

“Adora. Are students allowed on the book ladders.” Scorpia saw another girl push herself down a row of books, long pleated skirt flowing after her, hair blowing dramatically. She had never been more excited in her life.

“Yeah, but it’s actually really terrifying.” Adora shuddered. “Some of the ladders angle backwards when you slide on them and it feels like you’re falling off.”

Scorpia hummed. She still wanted to do it more than anything else in the world.

The trio found Catra and Entrapta at a table, natural history books spread out across the wooden surface. Catra had her head in her hands as she stared into the deepest place in the soul of a book while Entrapta scribbled madly at her maths homework, flipping pages like it was nobody’s business. Nearly every table, first floor and balcony, had a group of students at it. Most looked to be in some state of breakdown. Scorpia was almost scared to see this school when classes really kicked off. Someone just left to go cry in the bathroom, and it was only the fourth day.

The group sat down and pulled out their own books, borrowing pencils and pens and discussing math and science and what everyone thought of the English readings.

“I need to get a book for my Literature class,” Bow stood up and grabbed a piece of paper. “I’ll be right back.”

Bow returned a minute later with a book and Glimmer, who made it quite clear to everyone else at the table that she had a week to write a 1000 word essay for her philosophy class and was not happy about it.

She made it Very. Clear.

@@@

It was nearly six o’clock when everyone finished all their homework and got started on their assignments. As Scorpia walked out of the library with a couple of books to read on her own, she turned around to see about half the library still full.

“Is it usually this busy?” She asked the group. “It’s only, like, the first week and people are already so busy with work.”

“I mean, it calms down a little bit after the teachers get tired.” Bow laughed, obviously referencing his dads. “Usually after the first week, you’ll get about two hours a night.”

“A lot of students are still there because they’re trying to study to get into private universities.” Glimmer explained. “Some of them have been studying for exams since the summer.” She shuddered.

“Yeah, Adora, can you imagine studying for exams in September?” Catra nudged Adora with her elbow, nearly knocking the other girls books out of her arms. Adora’s cheeks flushed a rosey pink.

“Once you get unit work you should study it!” Adora defended herself to no avail, as everyone was looking at each other and giggling. “It’s never too early to study for exams. I did the same thing last year and got straight A’s on everything. My maths exam was an A-. What did all of you get on yours?”

At this point the group was laughing. Adora pointed a finger, waving it around at everyone.

“Yeah, that's what I thought. All of you got C’s! Catra you nearly failed. You got a D!”

Catra had her signature smirk on her face, she turned around to look at Adora, walking backwards on the gravel path leading to the gate. “Damn right I passed. I got the math credit, and that’s all that matters.”

The girls (and Bow) passed the school gate and split off into different directions, Catra and Glimmer leaving for the bus stop, and Bow and Entrapta branching off onto their proper streets. Adora and Scorpia climbed the stairs to their building and waved goodbye as Adora unlocked her unit. Scorpia dragged her feet up the stairs and opened her apartment. All the boxes were now gone, paintings hung up on the walls and decor laid sparsely around the living room. Even the mountain of cardboard was gone, save for the boxes still left in her room. Maybe I’ll do that today, Scorpia thought.

The kitchen was remarkably tidy, fully stocked with groceries. Scorpia’s mother had left a note on top of the previous note saying she was going to sort out some work related business, and would be back for a late dinner at 9.

Scorpia grabbed a snack and went to work on her last packed belongings. She closed the door to her bedroom after her, unpacked her bag and took out her phone.

22 new Snapchat friend requests.

You have been added to a group.

13 new Snapchat notifications.

Scorpia opened the app and looked at all the friend requests. Girls from her English class, some random 10th grader she didn’t know, her group in Geology, and some familiar names.

gl1mm3r_bu9

bow789

adora_ble43

peralta9catra

oops_its_entrapta

Scorpia smiled and added her friends. Well she added everyone, including the random 10th grader. The group with her friends was named ‘nerds who study in September’, so Scorpia assumed someone had changed the name. Maybe Catra? Definitely Catra. The group had made plans to go to Brightmoon cafe for coffee or tea at 7:30. Perfect. It was just after six, Scorpia had time to finish her room and head down to the cafe with Adora. 

Scorpia emptied the boxes on the floor by dumping all of her stuff on the bed. She began to sift through it. She taped up her fairy lights, hung up all of her posters, and finally moved her poor hamster onto an actual stand instead of just the floor. The teen gave him some treats before packing some money into her purse, leaving a note for her mother, and heading out the door to the Brightmoon Cafe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dress code, as one may tell, was my ranting about my own school dresscode. I stopped this series when covid hit (aaa) but now that I am back in school I do feel the need to vent once more.
> 
> The library is my dream library lmao


End file.
